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Lowell site factors in Gateway Cities focus

By Evan Lips, elips@lowellsun.com

Updated:
01/11/2013 06:36:43 AM EST

BOSTON -- The city of Lowell played a major role Thursday morning as lawmakers and economic-development policy experts met to discuss a new report issued by MassINC that calls for injecting $1.7 billion into the state's 24 Gateway Cities.

Lowell, and in particular the ambitious Hamilton Canal District project, were singled out as successful examples of what can happen when the private and public sectors collaborate on a common investment.

Ben Foreman, executive director of MassINC's Gateway Cities Innovation Institute, told breakfast attendees that "projects like Worcester's CitySquare and Lowell's Hamilton Canal District should serve as a rallying cry that we can do better and we can do more."

The MassINC report does, however, point out that the Hamilton Canal project is still "hobbled by financial uncertainty" and mentions the $14 million renovation of the Freudenberg Nonwovens building as being a tough space to court commercial interests given its mammoth size and the rehab needed to spruce it up.

Trinity Financial Inc., the Boston-based real-estate company at the forefront of the Hamilton Canal project and the Freudenberg rehab, is also helping to jump-start a similar initiative in Brockton.

Regarding Hamilton Canal, Trinity Financial President Jim Keefe said he's "not staying up at night worrying about whether or not we're going to lease it."

"We put together a great plan and have a great community behind us," he added.

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Assistant Lowell City Manager Adam Baacke pointed out that the timing of the Hamilton Canal District project "couldn't have been worse," as approval of the master plan arrived just in time for the dawn of the Great Recession in the 2000's.

He added that the city has witnessed "about $100 million in development" within the blocks ringing the 15-acre Hamilton Canal site.

"That gets at the heart of why projects like these have legs," he said.

Keefe said Lowell's journey actually began in the 1970s, decades before the Hamilton Canal project, when the late U.S. Sen. Paul Tsongas spearheaded efforts to create the Lowell National Historical Park.

"We're ahead of a lot of our peers but there's a long way to go," he said. "A city like Brockton is really at the beginning of this journey."

One aspect of Brockton's challenges that Keefe said caught him by surprise was the fact that "there has not been one Federal Historic Preservation Tax Credit project, a routine resource."

Baacke pointed out after the meeting that in the past, there had been competition between cities like Lowell and Brockton, whereas now programs like the Gateway Cities initiative are encouraging more teamwork.

Greg Bialecki, the state's Secretary of Housing and Economic Development, called the MassINC paper a "terrific and important report" and said "you can't imagine a prosperous and successful commonwealth where we have cities under-performing and trailing the state's unemployment average."

Bialecki also called for aggregating different state spending programs and following the money to see where "we can think about re-prioritizing funds."

"We know the report calls for additional funding so the challenge of looking for more resources is a big one," he said. "It's going to have to be a real collective effort to get there."

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